Open Source Radio Murray Saul Seneca College

Open Source Radio  How to Set up an Internet Radio Station: Why Internet Radio? / Basic Concepts Hardware Requirements / Software OGG vs. MP3 Files Installation & Configuration Radio Station Management

Open Source Radio  Why an Internet Radio Station? Curiosity with Linux Multimedia Apps Frustrated Musician?!? College Radio: ➔ Student Interest ➔ College Announcements ➔ Record Club Meetings ➔ Advertise College Programs/ Promote CS image

Open Source Radio  Basic Concepts Streaming Audio Server to server audio to clients via the Internet User(s) using a web browser or application Internet Remote Server(s) Application to “feed” audio tracks to Streaming Audio Server Internet Broadcasting Server

Open Source Radio  Hardware Requirements Type of Hardware to use depends on : ➔ Number of users expected to simultaneously connect to audio stream. ➔ Other types of applications running on server (eg. Webserver, etc). Server should have continuous connection to the Internet: ➔ T1, CABLE, DSL, … Server should have sound support ALSA, OSS, etc...

Open Source Radio  Available Software Many applications are available for MS, Linux and Apple-Mac platforms. There are many proprietary and open-source programs available. Linux OS: - Nullsoft Shoutcast - Icecast - Freecast Player: XMMS MS Windows OS: - Nullsoft Shoutcast - Icecast - Freecast Player: Winamp Mac OS: - Nullsoft Shoutcast - Freecast Player: Audion

Open Source Radio  OGG vs. MP3 Files MP3 audio compression technology is currently owned by Thomson Consumer Electronics. This company considers any encoding/decoding software not licensed by there company to be in violation of its copyright. OGG audio compression technology is developped by Xiph.org, and is considered to be a free and non-patented technology that is similar in performance to MP3 in quality. (OGG refers to a *Kamikaze* attack - video game)

Open Source Radio  My Linux Box  Icecast A streaming audio server to send audio data to listeners over the Internet. Icecast supports both Ogg Vorbis and MP3 audio streams.  Ices A client used to “feed” audio tracks (OGG or MP3 format) into the streaming audio server. Ices 1.3 supports both MP3 and OGG Vorbis, Ices 2.0 only supports OGG vorbis format.

Open Source Radio  Installation  Files Icecast and Ices can be downloaded from icecast.org. Files are available for download as RPMS and Zipped-Tarballs. This website has many resources such as documentation and YP Directory listings. Required Libraries Icecast: - libshout2 - libz Ices: - libshout2 - libogg - libvorbis - libxml2

Open Source Radio  Configuration - Icecast Icecast uses an XML file called icecast.xml for configuration: Limits Authentication YP Directory Settings Mount / Path Settings Logging Settings Relay Settings

Open Source Radio  Configuration - Ices Ices uses an XML file called ices.xml for configuration: General Settings ➔ Background / Logpath Stream: ➔ Metadata ➔ Input ➔ Instance

Open Source Radio  Running / Listening to Audio Stream Running Icecast:  icecast -b -c icecast.xml (run as root user)  Running Ices:  ices ices.xml (run as unpriviledged user) Playing Audio Stream:  url:port/mountpoint  url:port/mountpoint.m3u Could create script to killall processes and then run applications

Open Source Radio  Radio Station Management Copyright Issues ➔ Normally, when you play a song, you must pay to an association for artists. The College radio station gives me songs from an authorized database :) Recording Commercials (Audacity) ➔ I use the application Audacity (available in Windows & Linux) to record station ID's & commercials. ➔ Can use scripts to convert between audio compression types. (mp32ogg, ogg2mp3, etc...)

Open Source Radio  Radio Station Management Checking Broadcasting Statistics ➔ Can log in remotely via administrative account:  url:port/admin/ ➔ Can use awk utility to create reports based on access log: ➢ Number of unique clients ➢ Type of Applications used to listen to audio stream

Open Source Radio  Wrap-up and Questions